A question for linguists

[Gladius Hispaniensis]

Ave

Here's a question that's been intriguing me of late - why has the Greek tongue survived while Latin has not? Although I realize that Greek itself has gone through several evolutions in it's life, one can make an arguable case that it has survived more or less intact, especially in it's homeland. The same cannot be said of Latin, which, in Italy, actually evolved into a completely distinct language. And this in spite of the efforts of the Roman Church to preserve it in liturgical form. I would appreciate any input on this. Thanks in advance.

[ASCLEPIADES]

Ave

Here's a question that's been intriguing me of late - why has the Greek tongue survived while Latin has not? Although I realize that Greek itself has gone through several evolutions in it's life, one can make an arguable case that it has survived more or less intact, especially in it's homeland. The same cannot be said of Latin, which, in Italy, actually evolved into a completely distinct language. And this in spite of the efforts of the Roman Church to preserve it in liturgical form. I would appreciate any input on this. Thanks in advance.

 

Salve, GH!

 

All living languages evolve, only dead languages remain unchanged. In fact, by historical linguistics you can estimate the time at which languages diverged (Glottochronology).

 

Modern Greek (Νέα Ελληνικά) is not mutually intelligible with Classical Koine (Κοινή). They are different languages. The similarities and differences between them would be more or less analogous to those between Classical Latin and any modern Romance Language.

Edited September 25, 2007 by ASCLEPIADES

[docoflove1974]

Salve, GH!

 

All living languages evolve, only dead languages remain unchanged. In fact, by historical linguistics you can estimate the time at which languages diverged (Glottochronology).

 

Modern Greek (Νέα Ελληνικά) is not mutually intelligible with Classical Koine (Κοινή). They are different languages. The similarities and differences between them would be more or less analogous to those between Classical Latin and any modern Romance Language.

 

I would agree with this. I think it's just a matter of labelling; the various Romance languages grew out of Latin, and because Latin was so associated with the Roman Empire and, later, the Catholic church, and people were aware of the fact that what they spoke was different than the language of the Church, they labeled their language as being different. With Greek, while I'm not positive of this, I would imagine that the constant connection with the Ancient Greek societies--starting with the time of Roman conquest over Greek lands, and continuing through to the Byzantine times--resulted in the Greek-speaking peoples reinforcing that connection and continuing the label. I'm sure that the rise of the Greek Orthodox church further that link. So, in sum, I would say it's a question of identity, culture, and historical awareness.

[Gladius Hispaniensis]

The similarities and differences between them would be more or less analogous to those between Classical Latin and any modern Romance Language.

*SHOCKED*

Wow that is news to me. Thanks for that info.

Here's another question - how marked is the difference between Koine and Homeric Greek and Homeric Greek with, say, the language of Plato and Socrates?

Edited September 25, 2007 by Gladius Hispaniensis

[ASCLEPIADES]

*SHOCKED*

Wow that is news to me. Thanks for that info.

Here's another question - how marked is the difference between Koine and Homeric Greek and Homeric Greek with, say, the language of Plato and Socrates?

 

Here comes a very brief introduction to the basics of the history of the Greek Language, by Micheal Palmer (based on Geoffrey Horrocks' book, Greek: A History of the Language and its Speakers.

 

"The history of the Greek Language begins, as far as the surviving texts are concerned, with the Mycenaean civilization at least as early as the thirteenth century BCE. The earliest texts are written in a script called Linear B. After the collapse of the Mycenaean civilization (around 1200 BCE) writing disappeared from Greece. In the late ninth to early eighth century BCE ascript based on the Phoenician syllabary was introduced, with unneeded consonant symbols being reused to represent the Greek vowels. The oldest surviving alphabetic inscriptions are written using this new system and date from the late eighth century BCE.

In the classical or hellenic period Greek existed in several major dialects, each of which has its own significance for the history of the language, but the most influential of these would ultimately prove to be the one spoken in Athens, called Attic. Well within the hellenic period, though, Attic and Ionic

[Praebitorae]

Until about the 6th century the Greecks used to writte from right to left like the Hebrew and Arab of today.

Generaly indeed writting in mainland Greece disapeared after 1100 B.C but on the Isle of Cyprus for example and in Greeck communities in the east it did not (not entairly that is)

The Cypriotic writting bar used by Ventris could be seen as a "Bridge" spanning the period of 1100 B.C and lets say the Homeric age .

To this :

J.Boardman "The Greeks Overseas " and J.Chadwick "The decipherment of Linear B"

[sullafelix]

I have been told, but have no idea how accurate this is, that Romanian is one of the closest languages in vocab and structure to classical Latin. I should imagine it must have plenty of Byzantine and Ottaman influences too - does anyone know the truth of this?

 

SF

[docoflove1974]

I have been told, but have no idea how accurate this is, that Romanian is one of the closest languages in vocab and structure to classical Latin. I should imagine it must have plenty of Byzantine and Ottaman influences too - does anyone know the truth of this?

 

SF

 

Meh, I don't know that I would truly agree. Rumanian has heavy lexical influence from the various neighbors and intruders (various Slavic languages, Hungarian, and I believe there is a Turkish influence, too), and this must be entered into the equation. What can be said about the Romance vocabulary is that oftentimes the 'archaic' word for something is kept in Rumanian over a more 'modern' word, which is kept on in French/Italian and others. For example, it is often thought that comedere is an older word for 'eat' than manducare, which originally meant 'to chew', yet it is a version of comedere that is kept on in Rumanian (manca, if I'm reading my online site correctly...I'm sure Kosmo will help), Spanish and Portuguese (both comer), while a version of manducare that is continued on in French (manger) and Italian (mangiare). But this is common, and is often refered to in linguistics as the 'wake effect' (and it has other names): when one drops a rock in a pool of water, there are ripples or wakes that emminate out from the point of impact; as they go out, they get calmer and are more wide-spread, but the outer-most ring is the one which is the oldest. Same with language: when there is a change that spreads among a speech community, the first change tends to go out the furthest, but is also the oldest, and at the 'point of impact/change' there have been many other changes. In this case, this 'older' word for 'to eat' remains mostly in the outer-reaches of the former Empire, while the central parts have the more 'modern' word. (There is so much more to say on this, but that's for another thread.)

 

As to the grammar of Rumanian: there are certainly 'archaic' aspects of Rumanian grammar (use of case-marking comes to mind quickly) which one tends to connect with Latin, and justifiably so. However, Rumanian has so many innovations (use of articles, post-posed articles, analytic verb forms for the future and conditional for a start) that one is hard pressed to say that it's 'close' to Latin. That being said, because of the case system (which is severely reduced) and that there is a third group of nouns (there are many grammarians which call it a 'neuter' so as to round out the gender system of masculine, feminine and 'neuter'; however I follow Graham Mallinson's (1984, 1986) distinction of calling it ambigeneric--more on this later, too, if you wish), then many say that Rumanian is 'more archaic' and 'closer to Latin'. I would argue that few, if any, of the modern Romance languages are truly 'close' to Latin; these aspects of Rumanian have been debated--are they archaic forms, to keep the connection with Latin? or have they been 'strengthened' by being surrounded by languages which have the same characteristics?--and I think that most Romance linguists have their own opinion.

[sullafelix]

Ah enlightening thank you, there go my plans to quickly master Rumanian though! I shall have to confine that one to the bin marked things to do after the thesis! (Along with learning Magyar and Russian!)

 

SF

[WotWotius]

I have been told, but have no idea how accurate this is, that Romanian is one of the closest languages in vocab and structure to classical Latin. I should imagine it must have plenty of Byzantine and Ottaman influences too - does anyone know the truth of this?

 

SF

 

 

What is quite interesting about the Romanian language is that it still has some scant traces of pre-Latin Daco-Getae in it. Take, for example, some of the country's river names: although adapted to Latin, I am told that they still sound quite Thracian (e.g. Marisius, Alutus, Ordessus, Crisius, Rhabon, Donaris, Pyrhetus, Ararus, Napenis). Also the names of ten plants with healing powers (apparently) still maintain the Thracian names.

[docoflove1974]

What is quite interesting about the Romanian language is that it still has some scant traces of pre-Latin Daco-Getae in it. Take, for example, some of the country's river names: although adapted to Latin, I am told that they still sound quite Thracian (e.g. Marisius, Alutus, Ordessus, Crisius, Rhabon, Donaris, Pyrhetus, Ararus, Napenis). Also the names of ten plants with healing powers (apparently) still maintain the Thracian names.

 

Well, toponyms are always a separate area of the lexicon. They often don't change radically, and are most often adapted into the dominant language. What they can tell us is not only the 'original' name of the topographic element, but the various peoples/languages which have stopped by. I often think of the southern region of Spain: what the Romans called Betica (and I never could find an explanation for this, as it was previously the region of the Turdetanos, an Iberian/Celt-Iberian group) was later called 'the land of the Vandals' (V

[Antiochus III]

My uncle is a professor and says that italian and latin are more similar than modern and ancient Greek.

 

Antiochus III

[docoflove1974]

That is entirely possible. The period where 'Ancient Greek' was spoken 1000-500 BCE; 'Modern Greek' has been documented since 1500 CE. That is a much wider period of time in between the two linguistic epochs than that of Latin (Classical or otherwise) and Italian (and the other Romance languages).

[Maty]

I have passable Italian and Latin that is worse than it should be. My experience with modern Italian is that it is an interesting mix in which the Latin vocabulary has combined with Germanic grammar. As anyone who has dealt with Latin knows, the language is ruthlessly inflected both in verb and noun endings. Modern Italian uses the same auxiliary/participle construction as modern German (and English) with word order important to meaning

 

Consider for example a present perfect (using 'eat' as in earlier postings)

 

English: I have eaten (subject pronoun, auxiliary 'have' past participle 'eaten'.)

German: Ich habe gegessen (ditto - or something like it. My German is also rather bad)

Italian: Ho mangiato (Ho = 'I have' 'mangiato' is again the past participle.)

 

Latin does not have a Present perfect, and the nearest we get is 'mangiavo' with the 'vo' ending showing past tense and first person

 

Likewise 'The man loves the woman' 'L'uomo ama la donna' and 'Der Mann liebt die Frau' are all dependent on word order to establish meaning. 'Vir feminam amat' means the same as 'Feminam vir amat' or even 'Amat vir feminam'.

Edited April 17, 2008 by Maty

[Ludovicus]

I have passable Italian and Latin that is worse than it should be. My experience with modern Italian is that it is an interesting mix in which the Latin vocabulary has combined with Germanic grammar. As anyone who has dealt with Latin knows, the language is ruthlessly inflected both in verb and noun endings. Modern Italian uses the same auxiliary/participle construction as modern German (and English) with word order important to meaning

 

Consider for example a present perfect (using 'eat' as in earlier postings)

 

English: I have eaten (subject pronoun, auxiliary 'have' past participle 'eaten'.)

German: Ich habe gegessen (ditto - or something like it. My German is also rather bad)

Italian: Ho mangiato (Ho = 'I have' 'mangiato' is again the past participle.)

 

Latin does not have a Present perfect, and the nearest we get is 'mangiavo' with the 'vo' ending showing past tense and first person

 

Likewise 'The man loves the woman' 'L'uomo ama la donna' and 'Der Mann liebt die Frau' are all dependent on word order to establish meaning. 'Vir feminam amat' means the same as 'Feminam vir amat' or even 'Amat vir feminam'.

 

 

Interesting comment.

 

Spanish is more like Latin in its sentence order. It has an object case maker for nouns denoting people, the prepositon "a", from Late Latin "ad."

El hombre ama a la mujer.

A la mujer el hombre ama.

Ama el hombre a la mujer.